Hold Me Never (Holding Never) (9 page)

The shadows hide his face from me, and all I see as I
stumble round the corner and through a door are those still, black
boots and that black jacket which he is gripping so hard that his
knuckles gleam bone white in the gathering shadows.

Don't go, please don't go.
I strain to remember
his face, his eyes, a glimpse of his smile.

But what I remember, what I miss, is his kiss. The
image of Jaxon holding me in the lift and kissing me stabs unbidden
into my brain, right into my heart. The fierce ache that comes with
the memory is almost unbearable. It feels as if a piece of my heart
has been ripped right out of my chest.

I close my eyes, forcing his image out of my mind.

Go!

Just...go.

It is the only way.

Disorientated and dizzy, I don't even realize that I am
being led down a flight of steps until I trip on the edge of a cold,
concrete step. The guards haul me up gruffly and drag me down the
rest of the steps. The first thing I notice when my senses come back
to me is the overpowering smell of soap and perfume.

I look around in confusion. “W-where is this?
Where are you taking me?”

The guards don't answer. They release their hold on me
at the bottom of the stairs. I lose my balance and lurch forward,
straight into the arms of a thin, extraordinarily dressed woman with
so much makeup caked on her face I can hardly make out her real
features.

She pinches my shoulder between two fingers and peels me
off her, like she's peeling some piece of garbage off her bony arm.
Wrinkling her nose in disapproval, she looks me up and down with
narrowed, mismatched eyes. I stare from one purple eye to the other
orange eye. Those can't be real, can they? There is a delicate,
curling pattern radiating from her pupils to the corners of her large
irises. As she eyeballs me, those curling, rainbow-colored lines
seem to swirl and spin. It is impossible to look into her eyes and
not feel giddy. It is like being sucked into a whirlpool, dangerous
and hypnotic.

I blink quickly and tear my eyes away from hers, forcing
myself to focus on some other part of her face. Her thin eyebrows
are drawn in a fine arc over her eyes. I move past her stiff fake
eyelashes which fan out from her eyes like the legs of a dead insect
to the two blotches of startling bright pink on the apples of her
cheeks. Her plump lips are painted a shiny, sunny yellow. Flaming
red and orange hair is stacked high on her head, and heavily adorned
with glittering pins and bows.

“
You are Zoey, yes?” she drawls.

I nod.

“
I'm Mam Mallisa, and I am the Chief Groomer in
the Palace.” She waves a painted claw in the air and huffs,
“You are late. There is a lot of work to be done, on you—and
not enough time to do it. Let's go.” She saunters off and
looks over her shoulder. “Come along now. Follow me.”

Stumbling through a wide, stone doorway, my apprehension
is momentarily displaced by amazement. I gawk at the huge, brightly
lit room that I am entering. Now I know why I smelled soap and
perfume. This place looks like a beauty parlor, of sorts.

The guards mentioned the Grooming Room. This—must
be it.

But as I stagger deeper into the Grooming Room, I am
reminded of the factory where I worked in wary silence with all those
women. The Grooming Room is likewise filled with women, all silent,
with heads bent.

I'd thought that grooming involved making someone
beautiful and comfortable. Pampering, powdering, pandering. I'd
always thought that it would be a privilege and a luxury to be
groomed.

I am wrong.

The Grooming Room is more a factory than a beauty
parlor.

Here, grooming is a cold, systematic, mechanical
conveyor-belt process.

Scattered around the room are about twenty or so young
women being “groomed”. They are completely naked, and
are standing stiffly on small platforms, expressionless. There is no
pampering and pandering at all. These naked young women are being
worked on as if they're products. They are being stripped, waxed,
plucked, oiled, polished and painted, painstakingly processed into a
finished product.

I stare at the naked women on the platforms and the
women in dull, gray uniforms who are doing all the work around the
Room. The gray-uniformed women work quietly, washing and grooming
the naked girls, as well as cleaning, scrubbing, sweeping, mopping
and tidying up the entire Room.

My eyes start to water from the steam and perfumed mist.
Staring but not seeing, I bump into a petite gray uniform, and the
pile of towels in her arms tumble to the floor. “I'm sorry,
I'm so sorry...” I sputter, stooping down quickly to help her.

“
It's okay,” she answers softly, without
looking up at me.

She gathers up the towels hurriedly and reach for the
towels that I have haphazardly bunched up in my arms.

“
Oh, here, I...” I push the towels out to
her and gasp.

She has only three fingers on her hand.

What should have been her last two fingers are just two
bandaged stumps.

Stunned, I stand up slowly and shakily as she backs away
from me. I turn around in a circle, my eyes suddenly seeing clearly
through the mist. All the uniformed women are maimed and scarred.
Some are missing an eye, an ear, teeth, fingers, half their faces.
Badly healed wounds and scars track down their limbs. Many have
their backs to me, their faces bowed and turned away from me. They
don't want me to see them.

With dread, I turn my eyes and attention to the naked
women on the platforms. They remain like statues, not flinching even
when hot wax is applied to the most sensitive parts of their bodies.
A few of them flick curious glances in my direction. When Mam
Mallisa turns to glare at them, they all look down in a hurry. All
of them are young, in their twenties or early thirties at most. A
handful of them turn their heads as I pass. There is anxiety, anger,
resignation, concern and fear in their eyes.

Out of nowhere, Mam Mallisa appears at my side like a
phantom, startling me. “The Midnight Feast is tonight. One of
the Matrons will help you get ready,” she informs me, gesturing
at the gray uniforms. “You will be transformed into a Siren.
Like them.”

A Siren. Like those Sirens undulating in the water
under the Emperor's feet in the painting.

“
Gwin!” Mam Mallisa raises her voice.

“
Yes, Mam.” A Matron with curly red hair
limps to her side. When she gathers the skirt of her gray uniform in
a curtsey, I see that the last finger is missing on each hand. She
looks to be in her late twenties. Despite the jagged scar blazing
down her left cheek, she is beautiful. Her blue eyes are brilliant,
the color of a cloudless sky. Something I realize I may never see
again.

“
Get Zoey ready for the Midnight Feast. There is
a lot of work to be done on her. You know what to do,” Mam
Mallisa sniffs.

“
Yes Mam.”

Mam Mallisa squints at me. “Gwin will take care
of you. Go with her. Shoo!”

She shoos me off like a mangy stray and strides off,
muttering under her breath.

“
Eh, Zoey?” Gwin tilts her head at me. “If
you'll come with me.”

“
Oh. Okay.”

I follow Gwin as she leads me behind a curtain. “You'll
need to be bathed and waxed,” she tells me in a gentle, lilting
voice. “Brace yourself. It...might hurt a bit, since you're
not used to it. And it's going to take a while. Quite a long
while.”

“
That's okay. I'm well acquainted with pain.”
I shrug and try to smile. It was meant as a joke. But Gwin looks
down with a stricken expression.

I bite my lip. Bad joke.

Why in the world did I say that? That was stupid and
insensitive. Gwin has been mutilated and scarred. She has obviously
endured much more pain than me. That is not something I should joke
about. All these women have suffered much. Their eyes hide it, but
their faces and bodies show it. I give myself a big mental kick in
the ass and resolve to just keep my mouth shut.

When Gwin asks me to remove my clothes and step under a
shower, I obey quickly. I resolve not to make anything difficult for
her, just do as she says. Gwin is not going to hurt me. She is just
tasked to groom me into a Siren. I might not like what is being done
to me, but she is not the enemy. If I make any sound or cause any
delay, I have no doubt that she will be punished severely. She has
suffered enough. Her limp, her maimed hands, the scar on her face—I
am afraid to ask who did that to her. Was it Mam Mallisa? Or...

The shower comes on. The water is warm and I relax a
little. When Gwin starts to soap me, I protest. “No, no, I'll
wash myself,” I say, squirming.

“
Please, Zoey. Let me. It's my job.”

“
Oh. Oh, of course.” I blow out a sigh.
“I'm sorry, I just...” I swallow hard and square my
shoulders. “Go ahead. Please. Do what you must. I...I'm
just not used to anyone washing me, that's all. No one has ever
bathed me. Only my mother...” I trail off, unable to mask
the tremor in my voice.

“
I understand.” Gwin meets my eyes. “And
I'm sorry.” She bows her head before I can respond. She
washes me with care. Her hands are gentle, loving, and I close my
eyes, trying to remember my mother's soothing touch. I was little
then. My mother would rub noses with me and kiss the top of my head,
every night and every morning. I miss her so much, all the time.

The warm water spills down my face and I am not sure if
they are tears or just water. It doesn't matter. My eyes are
stinging from the shampoo and the soapy water. It's just the soap
that's causing my tears. Nothing else.

The water is turned off at last, and I feel Gwin's
small, soft hands patting me dry. When she removes the towel from my
body, I instinctively move my hands to try to cover myself.

“
Come, we have to go out now Zoey.”

But I'm completely naked!

As if she has heard my silent protest, Gwin holds out a
hand to me. “We'll go out together.”

She parts the curtain slowly and I see that the room is
now half empty. Most of the young women have left the platforms.
They must have completed their “grooming.” Only less
than a dozen girls are still frozen on their platforms.

Some of them flick their eyes to me when I step up on an
empty platform. One of them offers a quick smile before making like
a statue once more. I smile back at her but she has already looked
away. Her shoulder length blond hair reflects the light from the
large overhead lamps. She is fair with large, hazel eyes. Her eyes
dart everywhere, but she seems afraid to look at me again. She
appears to be around my age, maybe younger.

I glance at the rest of the girls. All their bodies are
perfectly smooth. There is not a single hair under their arms,
between their thighs, on their legs, anywhere on their gleaming
bodies.

I cup my hand awkwardly over the short curls between my
legs.

Gwin begins to apply a fragrant, white lotion down my
legs. “This might sting a little, so bear with it,” she
warns quietly. “But you'll get used to it.”

Used to it? Am I to get used to this? How many
times am I supposed to go through this?

“
Okay.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, shutting down my mind and senses
as well.

The sensation of creams being slathered over my skin and
my hairs being ripped from my legs, arms, underarms, crotch simply
becomes something foreign and far away.

Through the whole “grooming” process, I keep
my eyes tightly closed.

There is nothing I want to see, nothing I want to feel.

I don't think of what is being done to me here and now.

Instead, my mind transports me back to that small
elevator, in that enclosed space, to that timeless moment, when Jaxon
pulled me into his arms and we shared the same breath, and that one,
searing kiss.

My body throbs and my breath catches at the vivid
memory. I remember his eyes, his hands, his touch, his chest, his
heartbeat, his scent, his taste. I remember how—right the kiss
felt.

I gasp and I am not sure if the wetness between my legs
is due only to the pungent oils and lotions being slathered over
every inch of my bare body. My skin is tingling, stinging, sensitive
to the touch. I open my eyes and glance down. I have been plucked
and waxed, polished and perfumed to smooth, glistening perfection.

My body no longer looks or feels like my own. It looks
like a strange, fake, shiny plastic body with my head stuck on it.

Gwin dresses me quickly in those narrow strips of brown
cloths, arranging and tying them expertly over my breasts and hips.

Carefully, she screws the caps back onto the
dark-colored bottles and jars on a mechanized trolley beside her.